One hundred thousand protesters marched in Hong Kong on Sunday, voicing their
anger at Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, on the 15th anniversary of the
island's handover back to China.

Mr Hu was heckled twice in two days during his carefully chaperoned visit. On Sunday, a protester in the audience loudly shouted: "End one-party rule!" as he gave an inauguration address for Leung Chun-ying, the island's new leader.

On Saturday, police had to use pepper spray to fight back protesters trying to present Mr Hu with a 100,000-name petition calling for an investigation into the suspicious death of a Tiananmen Square dissident.

One journalist was earlier dragged away for shouting a question about the Tiananmen Square protests.

For his part, Mr Leung instantly upset proud locals by giving his speech entirely in Mandarin. He did not utter a single word of Cantonese, the dialect spoken by 89 per cent of Hong Kong's population. "Mr Leung might as well have knelt in front of Mr Hu in a full kowtow," remarked one commentator.

The marchers gathered at Victoria Park before peacefully moving through the city. One protester, 37-year-old Jacky Lim, carried Hong Kong's former flag, with a Union flag in its corner.

"There is nothing worth celebrating today," he said. "Hong Kong is being gradually destroyed by the Communist party."

Attempts by mainland Chinese to travel to Hong Kong for the protests were thwarted by the authorities, who have reportedly stopped issuing travel permits until July 5.

Meanwhile a parody of Hong Kong's saccharine handover anniversary anthem has become a hit on the internet. Fewer than 5,000 people have watched the official music video of the sentimental and patriotic Believe in our Dream, but ten times as many have clicked on Who's stolen our Dreams?, which rails at Chinese rule and says the Communist party is "brainwashing" Hong Kong.

Public anger at Chinese rule in Hong Kong has never been higher. A poll of nearly 900 long-term residents in the South China Morning Post showed that almost two-thirds believe life has got worse since the handover.

Only 16.8 per cent believed that Chinese rule had improved Hong Kong, down from nearly 40 per cent at the time of Mr Hu's last visit in 2007. A separate poll by the University of Hong Kong found that 37 per cent of residents do not trust Beijing, the highest proportion since 1997.

There is mounting frustration at the wealth gap on the island, which is now at its highest level since 1971 and wider than in Britain or the United States.

Property prices, meanwhile, already some 40 per cent higher on average than in London, have now reached an all-time record, surprising their previous high in 1997.

"Hong Kong has changed a lot in the past six months," said Wen Yunchao, a mainland Chinese activist now living in Hong Kong. "The so-called One Country, Two Systems does not really exist any more and Hong Kongers are worried, after the election of the new chief executive that Beijing is going to fully control Hong Kong."

However, Alicia Lui, a 33-year-old from Hong Kong who now works in Beijing said the island continues to influence life on the mainland.

"I think China is trying to copy Hong Kong and is catching up. In some cities, like Shanghai, life is already close to Hong Kong."

She noted that since most Hong Kong residents were descendants of mainland immigrants, the idea that people from Hong Konger dislike mainland Chinese was an exaggeration. "If you asked me where I am from, I would say Hong Kong, but if you questioned me further, I would say I was Chinese," she said.